Brokeback Mountain

[ankh]

First off, anyone else calling this Bareback Mountain without meaning to? It just sort of slips out.

Secondly, I haven't seen it - yet. I will see it but only because i've stopped reading the press about it.
Here in the UK there are billboards all over the place, same as for any other film. It's being heavily advertised on radio. Not so sure about TV ads because I rarely watch TV. It's just another film. I find the reaction in the US bizarre and it almost put me off the film. The talk of how "brave" the "straight" male actors are. PFFFT! Brave? Oh, I hadn't realised they'd been racing into burning buildings to rescue kittens and orphans; and that shark-wrestling to save a pregnant woman completely escaped me. They're *actors* playing *characters*, they're not required to change their sexuality or set up home together. Funny how I never see actors being called "brave" and angsting about it when they're playing murderers or philanderers. Get on with it, you wimps, and stop bloody whining. Actresses have to kiss men and women they don't fancy so why the big angst-fest over a male actor having to kiss someone he isn't attracted to? Oh woe, the poor actor is required to act. Every time the pair of them witter on about how difficult it was and responding to comments about bravery with anything other than 'I'm an actor, not a fireman' they add to the idea that playing a gay character is something fearful, something uncommon, something that requires a rundown of their straight love life just in case OMFG someone thinks they might not be *acting* gay, something that requires strength of character and heroics rather than simple acting skills. The Christian fundamentalist won't like it? Too fucking bad.

Those things led me to think the film was going to turn out to be a wussy cop-out, with gay characters dying unhappily because you can't be gay and have a happy ending in Hollywood. Oh wait...

I'll still be watching it, for the pretty and because I want it to do as well as any other movie so those wussy Hollywood types jump on the popularity bandwagon, and maybe in a few years playing a gay character won't be seen as something requiring courage but will be just another kind of character and any whining about how difficult it is will be met with "Try acting, dear boy".

Comments

[betacandy.livejournal.com]

I think it may be more that people didn't know to look.

Sure. But I also like to think that maybe every tiny scrap of physical affection wasn't sexualized then like it is now. I mean, we have manuals telling employers just where on the arm they can touch employees and for how long.

I'd rather have gay text than gay subtext, anyway. And getting back to Brokeback Mountain and the whole "brave" thing, wasn't there some of that "brave" talk about My Own Private Idaho, just b/c the actors were :shock, gasp: Hollywood?

Well, those "some people" kept trying to put Sam and Jack together to make some fans think they were lovers. Goose. Gander. Good. ;)

I very much agree. But how mindless do they think we are, that camera angles are supposed to imply certain types of relationships? Two characters don't even have to be on the same SHOW to get slashed/shipped in fanfic. What camera angle brought that on, dumbasses? :D

I rarely bring up religion or politics, and try to sidestep it if the person bringing it up is completely opposite my beliefs. I still have a niggling fear that someone will have a religious freakout that I'm not Christian and go after me to have me fired, though they'll probably use some other excuse. I doubt it will happen, but the threat is still there.

You're in TX, right? I grew up in TN in the 80's, and I knew people who were seriously harrassed and drummed out of schools for being *Democrats*. I can't imagine what adding gay or non-Christian to that rap sheet would have called for. I don't know if it's improved, but it was seriously warped.

L.A. is rather tolerant about that stuff, partly because religion and politics are still considered personal topics here, and there's really no dominant group. We may lean more Democrat than Republican, but I'd be hardpressed to tell you what the majority religion is around here. Money, I think. :D

[ankh-lj.livejournal.com]

"I very much agree. But how mindless do they think we are, that camera angles are supposed to imply certain types of relationships? Two characters don't even have to be on the same SHOW to get slashed/shipped in fanfic. What camera angle brought that on, dumbasses? :D"

It seemed to me to be the typical reaction of someone who doesn't get slash. 'You do realize hugging and touching doesn't have to be sexual?' Add to this that he's a male PTB and I suspect the idea of viewers creating something from the show that has little or nothing to do with what was deliberately put into the show just boggles their minds. Slashers (and shippers for that matter) don't need camera angles and physical contact. They don't even have to be on the same show or even have visuals (I'm into the Good Omens fic, that's based on *one book*). They don't get it so they try to explain it in a way that satisfies them. 'Oh, it's because they've misread two-shots, subconsciously responding to our directorial choices, not realizing the actors have to stand close to fit the frame!' Er...no.

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

LOL This is probably true, though. We all try to make sense out of things we don't understand. It's unfortunate that in any articles that I've read about slash, they always get it wrong, even if it's not entirely negative.

[ankh-lj.livejournal.com]

Ah, those articles that insist on trying to pigeonhole every slash fan in existence, as if slashers were one big mass with one mind and one reason why same gender fic of whatever preference pushed their one big button? 'You like slash because of reason X!' Well, sure, I might, but slasher over there might like it because of reason y and, actually, elements of reason z sometimes have a bearing. :-) The reasons are as varied as why some people like writing fic of any kind.

[betacandy.livejournal.com]

Add to this that he's a male PTB and I suspect the idea of viewers creating something from the show that has little or nothing to do with what was deliberately put into the show just boggles their minds.

I think a lot of producers embrace fan interaction, and realize it can only help their franchise. Unfortunately, a lot don't.

The sad thing is, we (US) live in a society where simulated straight sex and rape scenes are accepted in prime time (and day time), but a chaste same-sex kiss or a male-male rape would be something people would expect to be warned about. It's just a huge double-standard, based on beliefs that homosexuality is unnatural, but rape is a perfectly normal extension of a healthy sex drive. With that level of ignorance, I'm amazed we ever get anything half-right.